The stuff from before on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown ...

Classy Orange Innovation

Well here at NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown we have just got our hands on the new Orange flavour Choco Leibniz, which should start appearing in stores in the second week in December. Bahlsen has chosen the UK to launch this product. Presumably this is such a radical make over on a well an established biscuit that the home market of Germany would be stunned. However, I'm sure the British public will rise to this little challenge, and the launch of Orange flavour After Eight chocolates this Christmas will help raise the profile of Orange flavoured things even further, we expect. To find out what we thought of them take a look at Biscuit of the Week.

Look closely for the little orange segment on the pack

Triumphant Cornish Tea Tour

Well if you wondered why NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown had gone a bit quiet, we've been taking a much earned break down in Cornwall on another of our Celtic tea tours. The Cornish consider themselves to be Celts and have their own Celtic language, Woo. However, to most visitors what is more important is the uses to which they put prodigious amounts of clotted cream produced in the county. Sticking it in a scone with jam works for us, although the younger members of staff were impressed by its addition to strawberry and chocolate ice cream.

We based our stay in the delightful south coast village of Fowey, and not just because its close to the Eden project but because its about the loveliest bit of Cornwall there is. To find out more about our Cornish Tea Tour and which important tea time plants we found at the Eden project see our monthly newsletter.

Vending machine tea

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

Have you ever been fortunate to work at a company that is so successful, so huge and all powerful, that it deems that its employees shall not have to make their own tea. No, not for them the drudgery of tea and coffee making, the demeaning scrabble for the kettle, or the productivity sapping wait for it to boil. Oh no only the best for these lucky people. Bestowed upon them the ultimate convenience, their own free vending machine dispensing a variety of hot and cold beverages.

What's going on in there? Fullsize image Illustration by Dave at www.liveinabin.com

Well thats the idea, but of course we all know that vending machines produce some of the most offputting and unpleasant discharges known in any branch of science, engineering, plumbing or industrial waste disposal. Lets face it, anything that produces tea, coffee, vegetable soup and lime squash whilst making a noise like a bin lorry collecting rubbish should be viewed with deep suspicion.

Many have their own idiosyncratic twists. The refusal to dispense drinks into anything but their own flimsy plastic cups is all too common. Once the cup is removed from sanctuary of the machine it quickly looses all structural integrity. This is much like a milk carton whose top has been completely opened and then recklessly filled to brimming with boiling oil. Try sticking your own mug in the dispensing bay one of these guys and it will receive a small squirt of something foul whilst you'll be sprayed with scalding hot water as the whole machine shuts down to await the attentions of its 'local' service engineer. The engineer of course has three other similar incidents at machines to attend to this morning in the same fifty mile wide callout area.

Should you find yourself present when the engineer does turn up, then whatever you don't look inside the machine when it's opened up. To do so is to gaze upon a forbidden nightmare world of pipes and fluid, beyond our everyday comprehension. This is much like being the hapless witness to an alien autopsy. The fact these people usually turn up with a couple of buckets and wearing waterproof footwear puts one more in mind of farmyard animals being assisted in the act of giving birth, rather than a nice cuppa.

Perhaps you've been physically or mentally damaged by the output of one of these deranged metal boxes, or perhaps you actually like them and are constantly charmed by the offerings. Either way we want to hear your stories. Who knows we may even do a little icon to go with them.

Your vending machine feedback